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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> The market hates innovation - until its successful, then loves it.

What are you even talking about? Huge VC funding is predicated entirely on innovation before proving success. The market loves innovation... when it actually makes some kind of coherent sense.

> Meta making such a big bet on the future, win or lose, is inspiring

No it's not inspiring, it's idiotic. That's like saying "I bet my house and my kids' college money on a new crypto coin, but win or lose, it's inspiring!" It's not inspiring, it's just irresponsible.

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Best comment I saw on this was it's like trying to reinvent VR.

We already have VR. Incrementally, maybe there will be some sort of popular VR chat down the road, but it's just too expensive at this point for mass adoption. The distance between getting a Twitter account and hopping on the Metaverse is over $500.

It's like trying to reinvent Google Lively.

> it's just too expensive at this point for mass adoption

The problem in every hype cycle of VR is never price. It's strapping a chunk of plastic to your head and blocking out the real world.

I see something like Google Project Starline as being a better bet for "mass adoption" in the application space that meta is aiming for.

Good point, and thanks for sharing Starline. I hadn't heard of that.

I'd love to see a "Minority Report"-like interface in the form of Starline + Kinect. Oh, and with electronic ink to save my eyes. Thank you, future.

VR chat exists already, and it's fun :)

It isn't just that, though.

The idea of putting on a headset and "experiencing" a "chat" is a downright Lovecraftian dystopia that I want no part of - and I work in tech. Maybe it's the proximity to hardware that makes me so hostile to the idea, but I cannot for the life of me imagine doing that voluntarily. And thus I have to imagine that it wouldn't be voluntary if it becomes mainstream. "Everyone needs a facebook" becomes "everyone needs an Oculus" and so on. That it's $500 is a minor aspect of this.

I'm not entirely sure this is entirely true anymore:

> The idea of putting on a headset and "experiencing" a "chat" is a downright Lovecraftian dystopia

For the record, I fully believe that to be accurate for headsets. But how about fully immersive, 270°-by-270° viewport VR helmets? I've just come back from a beach holiday, and the thing that struck me was how many children were using snorkeling helmets. Not snorkels and goggles, but full-on helmets with a builtin snorkel jutting out on top. If kids can find such devices comfortable for making their swimming and light diving experience easier, then from a form factor point of view, a VR device going the same route might not be an entirely impossible thing.

The tech sure isn't there yet. And from a latency point of view, may never[0] become a reality. But a device around one's head appears not to be unthinkable.

0: I don't know how many milliseconds of visual latency a human brain can tolerate before breaking the immersion and/or giving the user a headache, but I suspect it's in single digits. Getting to those kinds of refresh rates, the display bandwidth demands would be insane. Possibly beyond what's physically possible.

"Lovecraftian dystopia" has to be hyperbole. I remember similar comments before cell phones became popular. No one can just go down to the river watch the water flow anymore! They always have to be on their phones!

> The market loves innovation

I guess the parent commenter used the wrong word to describe the people who tell meta not to innovate.

Crossing the chasm is a real thing for startups, and in that sence the mainstream indeed doesn't like the early part of innovation.

So when you say "mainstream" instead of "market", than it does makes sense.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

True to some degree. See Airbnb etc

Crossing the chasm is about the consumer market.

Parent commenter was clearly referring to the investment market, since the entire subject is a fall in stock price. Crossing the chasm has nothing to do with the investment market.

Parent said:

> activist letter telling Meta to give up on the Metaverse

I assumed it were some users who came up with that letter, but a quick google search indeed revealed it was investors. That wasn't clear to me and you are indeed correct.

I think you just disproved yourself. The market does hate innovation. That’s why there’s this big unmet need for funding innovation the VCs step in to fill. The market has left money on the table and VCs since they are private money, can pick up the money in huge average multiples across a portfolio.

I don't know what you think "the market" is, but VC investment is part of it.

Perhaps you're confusing the market with the "public market", publicly held companies? But the private market is very much part of the market. Nobody's leaving money on the table, that doesn't even make any sense.

The US mobile app market is now an effective monopoly that can charge as much commission as Cupertino wants and enforce whatever policy Cupertino prefers.

Google has its playstore to sell freely its services.

Facebook needs a way out. TikTok needs a way out.

"Whatever policy Cupertino prefers"

The only policy that was detrimental to Facebook was to have the shocking audacity to, gasp, ask for a user's permission before tracking them on every other app and website. And, shockingly, nearly everybody said "No, I don't want to be tracked everywhere."

Facebook's business model deserves to die if that's the policy that kills it.

also the 30 percent cut apple gets

And even more shockingly Cupertino started running casino ads in the app store that everyone has to have installed in their phones.

Apple calls this "personalized ads" when they do it, and "tracking" when FB does. They're the good guys(TM), so it must be true. It is no wonder why Zuck wants to own a platform.

Apple is not protecting anyone's data - they are using data for themselves. They are exempted from their own terms and they are expanding selling ads. U r just changing the different overlords. I wish more people could understand this and I would rather choose Google in this regard

As long as Apple can make more money selling devices and subscriptions than from ads I'd trust them 10x more than Google or FB. If there is credible competition and Apple continues to position itself as the 'privacy' option I don't think it really makes sense for them to shift towards Ads too much, they'd just lose customers and there is more $ in iPhones anyway.

Now if Apple actually becomes a virtual monopoly or it's the opposite and they have to cut their margins it's a quite different picture.

But they are doing exact what android is doing. U can't op out of apple's collection, u can only choose to not do personalized ads - just like google. And when android is conversation, we already know how it works but why do we have to sugar coat this when dealing with apple?

Apple's $30bn practically guarantees they never cared about your privacy - they simply wanted to supplant Meta in the adtech space and get a chunk of that sweet, sweet revenue.

Seems like a very shortsighted path to take. They'd be basically trading their high hardware margins for ad money, not a great deal...

Also a move like this would be almost certain to invite government intervention.

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